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Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?
- lohszvu 8y agoBecause they were built by Africans with wide noses. When they were conquered, they were altered to look more like the new king/god. See: Sphinx's tiny head
- cafard 8y agoA lot of ancient statues, not only Egyptian, have broken noses. Henry Fielding has a joke about it in A Journey From This World to the Next. The narrator, as is customary, pays his first visit in the next world to the disorder that killed him. Seeing the statues of famous victims, he imagines them antiques, but learns that, no, they are quite recent.
- ComputerGuru 8y agoI'm not sure the hypothesis stands up to scrutiny (apart from being based solely off of conjecture, that is). In the article, they link to the MOMA exhibit captioned "Yuny and his wife" [0], which depicts a male with a smashed-off nose seated next to, presumably, his wife with her nose very much intact. If robbers smashed the noses off of statues so their likenesses would not live in the afterlife to seek revenge, why would only one of the two people depicted in the same carving have their nose smashed off? [0]: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/unknown-egyptian-yuny-and-his-wife-renenutet https://www.artsy.net/artwork/unknown-egyptian-yuny-and-his-...
- JackFr 8y agoBecause they were afraid of Yuni and not his wife.
- jedberg 8y agoEdit: Apparently Egypt was more progressive than I thought. Women did have more rights than most ancient societies. Women were considered property of their husbands. If the husband is dead the wife can’t do anything because she is masterless.
- astazangasta 8y agoThis is dead wrong. Property passed matrilineally and women had many rights in ancient Egypt.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- avree 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Egypt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Egypt http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190170/ http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190170/
- simonh 8y agoThere's a lot of misunderstanding of ancient Egyptian culture due to the biases of early Egyptologists. I wouldn't call Egypt a matriarchy by any stretch, but women were in no way seen as property. They could own property in their own right, institute litigation, bear witness in court and travel freely unescorted. We have plenty of court proceedings and legal documents on all of this. Furthermore there was no legal or formal concept of marriage in an official sense. Two people were married when they moved in and lived together and declared it, and divorced when one of them left and they divided their property. As a result, women could unilaterally divorce their husband. The state had no role in it. Like other ancient Greeks, Herodotus was scandalised: "They Egyptians, in their manners and customs, seem to have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind. For instance, women attend market and are employed in trade, while men stay at home and do the weaving." On the other hand, the grave robbers in later eras may not have belonged to that culture, but might still have been superstitious about ancient Egyptian curses. I don't believe the theory, but it's difficult to disprove. Undowned for the edit, very gracious of you.
- ehnto 8y agoWhy would they spite someone they had no agenda against? It almost supports the opposite of your argument that one was left and one was not. I don't know that I believe the article either mind you.
- throwaway434234 8y agoYou see this in India at every temple that was raided by Muslims. The logic being that breaking the nose would make the "idol" unfit for worship. There probably are a lot of examples in the North (they are now part of some "secular" Mosque complex), but it's very apparent in some of the Hoysala temples that were partially/fully destroyed (esp. Halebidu), and in Vijayanagara. It's really quite sad. Then again, I suppose this adequately reflects India's state as a civilization... so SNAFU.
- reaperducer 8y agoYou see this in India at every temple that was raided by Muslims. The logic being that breaking the nose would make the "idol" unfit for worship. I find that interesting because when I was in Turkey it was common to see the ancient depictions of Jesus Christ on church walls with the eyes scratched off. The explanation given by the locals was the same as what you state for the statues in India.
- peteretep 8y agoLet's double-down on this and point out that the marauding Burmese desecrated temples of their neighbours -- knocking heads off Buddhas -- and they were of identical religions!
- temporalparts 8y agoWhen Angkor Wat was being raided by art thieves operating out of Thailand, they knocked off heads off of buddha not to be disrepsectful per se, but because they wanted to loot and sell those heads on the black market. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat#History
- benj111 8y agoI believe Muslims recognise Jesus as a prophet [1], so there was more going on there than different religions. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_Islam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_Islam
- vrinimi 8y agoA conjecture that I entertain, allowing a bit of validity to Julian Jaynes' "bicameral mind" theory: Egyptians back then could literally hear commands from statues as representations of the gods. Maybe breaking off the noses muted the voices (not sure why noses and not mouths). Warring factions might have wanted to mute opposing gods and install their own.
- trevyn 8y agoThat’s a really interesting hypothesis. Breaking off the nose is probably easier to do and maybe was a sufficient “this is not a real person” mental input to damp the response.
- EGreg 8y agoLiterally hear? Citation needed!
- 725686 8y agoThe citation is the very first thing in the comment you responded to: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. Haven't read it but heard of it many times. Interesting speculation, but there you have your citation.
- EGreg 8y agoYou haven’t read it but you know egyptians could literally hear voices from statues? I call exaggeration :) EDIT: I didn’t see your colon, I thought it was a period which made it sound like you were making the claim yourself, and I was eager to get resources other than his theory, only to hear his theory again lol.
- circlefavshape 8y ago"Egyptians back then could literally hear commands from statues as representations of the gods" What?
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- eu 8y agoI was going to mention about Napoleon's troops shooting the nose off the Sphinx, but did a search to confirm: > ...he face of the Sphinx was vandalized in 1378 A.D. by Mohammed Sa'im al-Dahr, a "fanatical sufi of the oldest and most highly respected sufi convent of Cairo." [0] [0] https://www.napoleon-series.org/faq/c_sphinx.html https://www.napoleon-series.org/faq/c_sphinx.html
- lostlogin 8y agoObelix inaccurately gets the blame too sometimes. http://domenglishcorner.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-sphinxs-nose.html?m=1 http://domenglishcorner.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-sphinxs-nos...
- intrasight 8y agoI had the question, after visiting Rome, of why so many Roman statues lacked a penis. Found this. But I'm sure that in many cases it was just due to the fact that appendages on statues are more easily damaged - whether nose or penis. http://ourromanadventure.blogspot.com/2009/10/where-are-all-penises.html http://ourromanadventure.blogspot.com/2009/10/where-are-all-...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dharmon 8y agoI remember reading Da Vinci Code (awful book) and he (the protagonist) made this claim, that there was a "Great Demasculation" to remove penises from statues. I tried looking it up but couldn't find anything to support that this was true. But this was 2003 so information on the web wasn't as plentiful or easy to find. A simpler explanation is, as you say, that they are just more easily broken.
- duxup 8y agoYeah if you're going to break a thing, internationally or not... the parts that stick out just seem easier.
- jfk13 8y agoAs illustrated by the Specsavers ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqOwg0dqApY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqOwg0dqApY
- Bartweiss 8y agoOn one hand, it's well-established that the Catholic Church was uncomfortable with nude art, not only in Christian works but in Roman-era 'heroic nudity'. On the other hand, the reason that's well-documented is that we know a great deal of art, including statuary, was altered by adding fig leaves and other concealments to hide nudity. I guess it's possible that lesser works were simply defaced instead of being altered, but given how much hand-wringing was devoted to altering statues, it's the sort of practice I'd expect to be well-documented, and I've never seen any evidence to that effect. I'd guess you're right: it's yet another case of Brown grabbing a random pattern and inserting meaning for it.
- LeanderK 8y ago> Such a practice seems especially outrageous to modern viewers, considering our appreciation of Egyptian artifacts as masterful works of fine art, but Bleiberg is quick to point out that “ancient Egyptians didn’t have a word for ‘art.’ They would have referred to these objects as ‘equipment.’” When we talk about these artifacts as works of art, he said, we de-contextualize them. this is very interesting and I have never thought about it in this way. One could really think of it as equipment, serving a real purpose (or having served and now makes a nice peace of a wall somewhere else). I wonder what the acient egyptions would think of our appreciation of their statues?
- dalbasal 8y agoWe kind of don't have a word for "art" either. Historically/etymologically, art means "skilled work" or just "stuff made by people" (as in artifact). The word/concept seems to have evolved gradually to its current meaning with all its complex connotations of beauty, metaphorical depth and existing for its own sake. Even early modern and Renaissance art was probably seen differently to how we see it. A lot of the best statues and paintings had religious purposes, kind of like Egyptians.
- LeanderK 8y agoI don't think this is an valid argument. I think that "art", as understood now, is pretty much the word for "art". A language is an evolving thing and the usage defines the meaning. Many words change their meaning and new words emerge. > Even early modern and Renaissance art was probably seen differently to how we see it. A lot of the best statues and paintings had religious purposes, kind of like Egyptians. Nearly everything artists in the past produced was commissioned work, the dutch old-masters are no different and I would be suprised if the appreciation for arts emerged out of nowhere, it was (as nearly everything is) a gradual process. I am a bit suprised by my lack of knowledge how art evolved as a concept, so I can't really argue much here.
- dalbasal 8y agoI would be surprised if it was entirely absent in Egypt too. I didn't mean to imply renaissance people had no concept of art, just that the concept (not just word) was likely somewhat different to ours, which has evolved since.
- legohead 8y agoSounds like a lot of guessing. Apparently nothing is written in stone as to why they did this. The explanation reminds me of english teachers trying to interpret poems. It's also odd they mention removing the left arm has significance, but show pictures of statues with the right arms removed... My guess is it is related to some common speech, like a saying, or a gesture of some sort. Like flicking of the nose is a 'fuck you', and so people chop off the noses of things to insult or show objection to the subject. But, like the article, just a guess.
- Zelmor 8y agoBecause religion is the drug of the unwashed masses, and there is a lot of those around everywhere.
- doitLP 8y agoInappropriate and bigoted comment.
- dang 8y agoReligious flamewar is not allowed on HN. Please don't post like this, or like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19389868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19389868, here. In addition, would you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments? You've done it repeatedly, and eventually we ban accounts for that too. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Digit-Al 8y agoFrom the article: > In statues intended to show human beings making offerings to gods, the left arm—most commonly used to make offerings—is cut off so the statue’s function can’t be performed (the right hand is often found axed in statues receiving offerings). So they do actually mention the right arm as well.
- Zelmor 8y agoBecause muslims.
- ataturk 8y agoExcept the hordes that sacked Rome cut the heads off all the statues, too. And they definitely weren't Muslims.
- fwip 8y agoI'm surprised that the article didn't mention another popular theory: that many of the Egyptian statues taken by Europeans had their noses deliberately broken to obscure their blackness. As the theory goes, in order to make the statues seem like high art, it was necessary to make the culture seem more like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Removing their noses made it so the viewer could more easily read the statues as "like us," rather than the "primitive" countries of black people that Europe was busy exploiting.
- bagel_factory 8y agoWe wuz kangz
- acron0 8y agoProbably because it's not a theory with any substantial evidence.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 8y agoYeah, and they didn't mention other crackpot theories either, like ancient aliens destroying the statue's faces with zero-point energy weapons. I wonder why?
- novacole 8y agoWhy would it be a crackpot theory to suggest that for Western Europeans, whose civilization as we know it starts in the late 1400s, who convinced themselves of African inferiority for the purpose of justifying their theft, rape, and murder of those people, upon seeing Black looking people in Egypt from thousands of years before their civilization started, would want to erase signs of it? Sounds just about right to me.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 8y agoThat's a very "nice" narrative. The only problem is that it isn't grounded on archeological or historical evidence, therefore it's a crackpot theory.
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- NelsonMinar 8y agoThe computer geniuses here at Hacker News have decided the main argument of this article are wrong. But among archaeologists ritual defacement is understood to be a regular thing that happens to art all over the world. Roman coins defaced: https://www.coinsweekly.com/en/Defacing-the-past-damnation-and-desecration-in-imperial-Rome/4?&id=4384 https://www.coinsweekly.com/en/Defacing-the-past-damnation-a... Teotihuacan icons demolished and destroyed by fire: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/sep/24/teotihuacan-pyramids-treasures-secret-de-young-museum-san-francisco https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/sep/24/teotihu...
- malvosenior 8y agoIsn't the argument in the article not that they were defaced due to "ritual defacement" but that vandals thought that by breaking the noses off, they were effectively killing the person in the after life, thus not allowing them to seek retribution for robbing their grave?
- ISV_Damocles 8y agoBreaking the nose to placate concerns about a supernatural phenomenon seems like the very definition of a ritual (placate concerns about a supernatural phenomenon) defacement (literally removing a surface feature from the face of a statue)?
- malvosenior 8y agoI see it more as the ancient equivalent of disabling a car alarm when you're stealing it. They were robbing the graves not preforming a ritual. Their beliefs may have been supernatural but at the time it seemed logical to "kill" the observer of the crime. It wasn't defacement to send a message, it was practical and tactical as far as the robbers were concerned (according to this article's premise).
- PopeDotNinja 8y agoAnd then there's the Sphinx's nose! That's the canonical example of Egyptian statue nose bashing. https://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/blog/photo-what-happened-to-the-sphinxs-nose-180950757/ https://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/blog/photo-what-happened...
- tabtab 8y agoNobody really nose.
- DerSaidin 8y agoTo stop the Goa'uld from getting in?
- gwbas1c 8y agoHahahaha! I wish Hacker News had a way to flag this post funny. (Parent is a Stargate reference)
- agnelvishal 8y agoNose cut is a sign of being mocked
- lurquer 8y agoMaybe ancient Egyptians didnt have noses.
- hprotagonist 8y agoI’d always understood that particular ritual mutilation to be an ersatz penis. Noses protrude, too, after all.
- diminish 8y agoJust couldn't read because Page down, or down arrow doesn't scroll on firefox. Very weird behavior.
- justanegg 8y agoThe noses were gold plated.
- rodionos 8y agoNot having a nose is ok compared to having a half of the head attached from another sculpture. This was the case in imperial Rome when the sculptors had to quickly retrofit works in progress to fit the new emperor. In some periods you had three emperors succeed each other, most certainly involuntarily, within a period of three years.
- freshm087 8y agoYou don't need to go that far back in time, changing statues heads was a thing in USSR.
- lqet 8y agoWell, this not what I learned as a kid: https://youtu.be/Ea_9yGV61Dg?t=24 https://youtu.be/Ea_9yGV61Dg?t=24
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Simulacra 8y ago"“The damaged part of the body is no longer able to do its job,” Bleiberg explained. Without a nose, the statue-spirit ceases to breathe, so that the vandal is effectively “killing” it. To hammer the ears off a statue of a god would make it unable to hear a prayer. In statues intended to show human beings making offerings to gods, the left arm—most commonly used to make offerings—is cut off so the statue’s function can’t be performed (the right hand is often found axed in statues receiving offerings)."
- beirut_bootleg 8y agoWish I could read this. Unfortunately artsy.net shows a cookie consent popup on mobile with the label "Agree" next to the popup close icon, and on desktop it just straight out writes the cookies without asking.
- joveian 8y agoReminds me of the movie Skins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skins_(2002_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skins_(2002_film) Statues (and sculpture generally) still have power and not always in a good way.
- enterx 8y agoasked myself the same question few days ago. Statues in general. First guess, face hit during civil unrest.